MUSIC | 19 W
ith honourable exceptions like Missy Elliott and Lil’ Kim, the world of rap music remains the domain of
blokes grabbing their crotches and boasting about how much bling and how many bitches they have. Until now. Say hello to Azealia Banks, the freshest,
nastiest, most foul mouthed rapper to come from the States in years. The 20-year-old from Harlem, NYC,
is
already turning heads on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite only having released one single, Banks topped NME’s cool list last year, and came third in the BBC’s Sound of 2012 poll, while across the pond her music is getting raved about by everyone, notably taste making website Pitchfork. “I definitely think Harlem has influenced my music,” says Banks. “Whenever there’s a new trend, even if
it hasn’t
started there, it gets amplified there, because people from Harlem are the coolest.” Banks is certainly the coolest. One glance at the video for debut single 212 is enough proof of that. With her hair done up in long pleats and wearing a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt she unleashes an abusive and highly amusing tirade of filthy expletives aimed at the haters, rivals and imitators in the music business, and she does so with a cheeky smile. “Rap is my way of expressing my fears, my desires, saying all the things that I want to say to people without offending them,” she says. “Although people can argue that 212 is not polite at all.
That really spoke to a lot of people, but I’ve written plenty of other songs, rap and R&B, I don’t want to just do one thing, that’s how you get forgotten about in a year.” There’s little chance of that. The video for 212 has notched up over eight and a half million hits on YouTube. Her recent appearance on an NME sponsored tour was met with a rapturous reception, and her debut album is one of the most hotly anticipated releases in years. It’s interesting that contrary to her street image, Banks actually grew up doing theatre instead of music. Although she failed to get into drama at the famous La Guardia school in New York, she did get in to do music, and she found the atmosphere there to her liking. “If you’ve ever see the film Fame, that’s totally what
school was like for me,” she says. “Dancing in the lunch hall, singing in the hallways. That’s when I got a real taste for competition, everyone in the school was fighting to get ahead. But once I got out into the real world I was spinning my wheels and not going anywhere. So I just started rapping.” And it’s a good thing for us that she did.
Azealia Banks will be at RockNess on Friday 08 June,
www.rockness.co.uk
THE LYRICS THAT MAKE
YOUR HAIR STAND ON END
Scotland’s new home of live entertainment
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